Yesterday, we focused on how Arsenal have managed to find themselves in another situation where they’ve embarked on a blurry journey to find the next level. Today, we’re going to move away from the doom and try and paint a picture of what things could look like for the club if they make good decisions over the next 5 years.
Liverpool Football Club is an unbearable institution, of that there is no doubt. However, what they have achieved in 5 years is beyond spectacular. It is a minor miracle. A benchmark for clubs that don’t have the luxury of billions of dollars in sugar daddy cash.
We spent years on here extolling the virtues of using smarts to beat the system while so many people just aped the old Arsenal line of ‘it’s impossible to win with financial doping.’ It has always been weak to believe there is only one way to achieve success and this story aims to uncover how better decision making that starts now could set us on a future path to glory.
Firstly, let’s start in 2015. Arsenal had just lifted their second trophy of the decade, they finished 3rd in the League comfortably on 75 points, things were looking up. We had the makings of a decent squad. It was so good, the only signings we made that summer were Mo Elneney and Petr Cech (lol). People inside the club genuinely thought that FA Cup win was about to spark something at Arsenal.
Liverpool had just crashed to 6th after nearly winning the league the season before but for a slip. Brendan Rodgers squad hadn’t moved forward, and they doubled down on the problems that summer by spending £50m on Benteke, £20m on Clyne, with the only saving grace being Firmino for £45m. They also lost Raheem Sterling to City.
The following season saw Liverpool crash to 10th in the table by October, Rodgers was sacked and they went big with the replacement. They brought in Jurgen Klopp, the charismatic German who’d ended his Dortmund tenure in flames the season prior. This was a spectacular decision.
We finished 2nd in the league with Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester besting us by 10 points. Let’s get this absolutely straight, that season was an absolute disaster for all the teams around us. Every club in the big 6 had cycled through a new manager within a year. Our celebrated stability under Wenger still couldn’t deliver a major trophy
Bold exec leadership would have looked at the context of that years 2nd place honestly. They’d have seen that it was in fact a dismal failure, not a success. The only joy was beating Spurs to 2nd on the last game of the season. It would have been apparent to anyone worth their salt that the clubs around Arsenal were making smart hiring decisions, moving into areas we were ahead of them in, whilst laying the foundations for a brighter future.
So what did we do?
We entrusted Arsene Wenger to make magic happen with the money we were ensured would make the difference to his performance. He signed Mustafi, Perez, Xhaka, Asano, Holding, and Brammal. Mikel Arteta retired and went to City. Serge Gnabry was sold to Germany for £4.3m.
That season was a tipping point for both Arsenal and Liverpool. Both clubs took on very different strategies, one grounded in data and a clear vision, the other in mess of conflicting thoughts and whims.
The top guy at Liverpool for data is a person called Ian Graham. Before we talk about him, it’s worth noting that Liverpool owner John Henry made his money from algorithms way back in the day when he was in hedge funds, Fenway Group also had a successful baseball team (they love the Moneyball numbers game), so they know there’s value to be unlocked in spreadsheets.
Ian Graham is a smart guy, he has a doctorate in theoretical physics from Cambridge, he decided to lend his experience to football, he bummed around at Spurs for a bit though found little luck with the management, then he landed his big break. Liverpool brought him in during 2012 to create a data-centric culture for a club that had lost its way. Famously, it was Ian’s data that led to the hiring of Jurgen Klopp, he correctly assessed that his final season at Dortmund was mostly terrible because of bad luck, the xG numbers were heavily weighted against Dortmund.
Klopp loved hearing that story when they met and immediately connected with him when he joined and the rest is history.
Here’s a snippet from the NYT on how he approaches player identification.
Graham’s weightiest responsibility is helping Liverpool decide which players to acquire. He does that by feeding information on games into his formulas. What he doesn’t do is make evaluations by watching those games. “I don’t like video,” he says. “It biases you.” Graham wants the club that he works for to win, but he also wants his judgments to be validated. “All of these players, there has been discussion of their relative merits,” he said. “If they do badly, I take it as sort of a personal affront. If I think someone is a good player, I really, really want them to do well.”
His data doesn’t just inform transfers, it also helps the club understand the true performance of the team in games and training, it helps them find advantages in areas others aren’t looking, it is a true competitive advantage that is there to support an elite team of coaches with their decisions.
So what about Arsenal? Well, we’re a long way behind, but it didn’t need to be that way. Ivan G went out and bought one of the leading football data companies in the world with StatDNA. We had that in 2013. The problem? Our manager didn’t embrace it, nor his dated staff. The exec team didn’t insist on making it work. They just allowed the investment to sit in the corner gathering dust.
As I wrote about extensively yesterday, Ivan G made inroads with modernising his backroom team, knowing full well we’d neglected his purchase. He hired in Diamond Eyes, a famous data-centric scout. Sadly though, we never saw the fruits of this smart hire because our former CEO quit mid-project and left the German to the ‘contacts’ wolves. So now fast forward to 2020, we’re actually further behind in modernizing than we ever have been. One of the founders of StatDNA has left, a bunch of scouts have been fired, and our leader gets his player updates from a small selection of agents with very average taste.
ACTION ITEM: This summer, the club needs to refocus its energy on making us a data forward football club. We should make it a priority to hire someone at the cutting edge of scouting or empower talent that has shown an interest in the area at the club. Every decision we make should be underpinned by data-driven insights. It should help identify the talent with scouts out in the field to give context well before an agent is asked for an opinion. We need a new Sven and a version of Ian Graham and they should both be given a mandate. Data should not be optional in 2020. That is a backwards approach. If our Technical Director is not technical, what is the point?
Transfer Approach:
We are in a bad place with our squad at the moment, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The first thing you have to do is stop making bad decisions. Don’t give big deals to average players, stop listening super-agents, and build yourself the profile of the sort of player you need to succeed. This is how Ralph Rangnick describes his player profile for the RB group.
The difference between us and other clubs is that when we sign or scout new players, we are fishing in a very small pond. We only interested in players aged between 17 and 23, as from our experience, when you are 23 you are no longer a talent. If you look at other clubs and their development, you can see that players start their careers earlier than 10 years ago and finish earlier too. So we are only scouting those players. The maximum age is 23. The second difference is that in both clubs, we try to implement and play the same style of football and of course between the two clubs, we make use of synergies that can be developed out of those two factors.
The RB business model is predicated on moving on experienced players on so they can fund growth (and buy better kids). The player profile matches their intent. What is our player profile? Does it match our ambitions? Does it suit our finances? Does it get us closer to the Champions League? Arguably, no.
Arsenal is not being honest with themselves. Some people at the club know what we need to do, others are living in a Barca-Lite fantasyland where hobnobbing with the fancy super-agents gives them some sort of weird personal status kick.
We need to be honest about how we navigate the future and stop chasing childish dreams hoping that maybe, by accident, we’ll stumble back into the top 4.
Factors that should shape the profile:
- Our wage bill needs to reduce drastically
- We lack power and pace in a brutal league
- We have a coach that is highly technical
- This is a 5 year plan
All of that points you to a very specific profile of player we should be signing. Young, talented, technical, cheap, and ambitious. Not Cedric Soares on a 4-year deal.
Spending money well now pays huge dividends in the future. The easier it is to sell players for profit, the more money you have to play with each summer. Liverpool sussed this and managed to become Champions of England and Europe whilst being a selling club. Look at the net spends of both Arsenal and Liverpool over the last 5 years (£).
Liverpool’s 5-year net spend is £107m, Arsenal’s is £270m (TransferMarkt)
They are a selling club, raking up £400m in sale, versus our £200m. Worth noting that they haven’t sold less than £37m worth of players a season over 5 years, we had 3 seasons of not breaking £10m in sales.
Liverpool’s ground zero moment was Benteke for £50m in 2015. The Liverpool brain trust managed to keep Klopp’s spending to below zero for two seasons before they went big on two special players that helped them win the Champions League at the second attempt.
There’s also a case to be made for wages as well. Ours sits at £230m a season and we’re barely in the top half of the league. We need to cut that and improve quality. That can only come from great scouting that uncovers value. At the moment, we’re blowing £200k a week on a 33 year that all in cost £24m. Can you honestly tell me there’s not a centre back in the Bundasliga that wouldn’t have cost 30% of his salary and given us some resale value? You can’t.
We need to get back to basics because here’s another harsh slap in the face, Liverpool landed where they are spending just £100m a more on wages over 5 years (Swiss Ramble). Sounds a like a huge difference, but it’s basically one Mesut Ozil for 5 seasons.
.
The byproduct of right-sizing and building on a plan grounded in reality is that as you get more success, you can offer more money to talent. Those big jumps in salary came as a result of more prize money and winning trophies. We are stuck in rut, throwing big money at temporary solutions as our revenue disintegrates. This approach started in 2017 and it hasn’t worked. Time to face the music and try a new way.
Raul, Edu and Arteta need to be aligned on what it takes to get back to the top. It was clear from Emery’s complaining that was not the case for him. It would seem from out business so far this year that once again, it’s a Raul/Edu production and the agents are the stars again. That is not going to be successful.
There is simply no excuse for not being at Liverpool’s level when we’ve had more resource to play with. Stan K and his KSE operation are not cheap, they have invested £163m more in transfers than Liverpool over 5 years. The problem with our owners is they keep letting visionless people spend their money. We arguably have the most broken squad of the past 20 years, we are lower in the table than we’ve been in living memory, and we are looking at team that finished 8th in 2015 lift the Premier League and the Champions League trophies 5 years later.
It is possible to get back to the elite, you just need a plan.
Action Items:
- Get a grip on the contract issues so we stop losing high-value talent for next to nothing
- Focus on buying younger players with higher ceilings so we can grow value
- Become a better selling club by enforcing the 2-year deal rule
- Offer market rate contracts so players don’t get fat and stay with us if things don’t work out.
- Ban super-agents from the exec box
The Coach:
I won’t labour on this point for too long, but Liverpool pulled off a masterstroke with Jurgen Klopp. He was the right man for the right moment. He wanted to rebuild a fallen giant. That meant he was happy to work with a brain trust, he understood that success wouldn’t be overnight, and he was happy to play the net spend game until the clubs finances repaired.
Arsenal didn’t hire Klopp. We blew the chance for that sort of coach when our ‘experience’ hire ended up being Emery. We let the Spaniard spend more in 18 months (£161m) than Klopp has spent in his entire Liverpool career to date (£75m).
Now we’re in a new moment. The club has little to no money, it has a broken squad, and the wage bill simply has to be crushed if we’re to survive the next 3 years.
Arteta, if things go well, is the correct coach for this moment in time. He loves Arsenal FC, which means he’s committed to restoring it. It’s his first job and he’s extremely ambitious, that means he has extra capital invested in making sure he doesn’t fail. He’s an exceptional coach, which means he’s is perfectly suited to helping our young squad of kids grow into their careers. The ceiling for him is the very top.
The expectations are also at an all-time low for Arsenal fans. No one is expecting much from the club at the moment. That sort of environment relieves a bit of the pressure on a green coach and it certainly gives the young players a better environment to work in.
Arteta has worked in a high-performance culture. To thrive, he needs to work with like-minded people with the interests of our great football club at heart. Those experts should be on Arsenal’s payroll. Decisions should never be influenced by grifters. Every single person needs to be pulling in the direction of an exciting agreed-upon vision. That is the only way it works.
Actions Points:
- Allow the coach to do his thing and support his vision for how we grow the team
- Back his aggressive push for a high-performance culture. Ship out players and staff that don’t meet the standards.
- Build an infrastructure around him that pushes him to be better. He has no bad habits as a coach, there’s no legacy, that means he’ll be open to new ideas and ways of working.
- Find the very best people in the game and bake them into the project. Who is the new Sven? Who is the new Ian Graham? Who are the elite young coaches in the game that could bring fresh thinking to the squad? Are there any cool ideas we can borrow from The Rams?
- Support the manager with players that fit the profile of how he wants to play football. Fast, intelligent, mobile and hungry to be the best at what they do.
So to conclude this monster.
There is always hope. We are a beast of a club. We have the name, the training facilities, great staff, and more than enough revenue to do great things if we get creative this summer. We just need a bit of honesty about where we are as a club, we need a strategy to get back to the top, then we need to make sure every single action we take as a club is in support of the vision.
The success story at Liverpool has shown Arsenal the way forward, the question is, can Raul and Edu step to the occasion, or do we have to search out a new leadership team to help us finally make the jump?
We’ll find out very soon.
Champagne Charlie
Very true!
TR7
“You don’t let such a top player leave.”
Maybe Bayern have been tapping him up for a long time.
Man City are a top club now but Bayern are bigger and Sane does originally come from Bundesliga.
Ishola
Looks like City and Pep wanted to offload Sane. What explains Sane getting very few minutes this season when he was a standout performer last season. If not for little game time, Sane might as well have stayed at City.
“What explains Sane getting very few minutes this season when he was a standout performer last season“
He ruptured his cruciate ligament, and was ready to return as the pandemic hit.
Upstate, who the manager is doesn’t impact how you build out a data-centric infrastructure.
TR7 If the Bayern tapping was going on for a long time this may have had an affect in what you describe above. He wouldn’t be the first player to fade at a club while being tapped up by another. Focus starts to wane. Another reason could be that Pep prefers his forward line to have a more all round work rate. For all Sane’s talent on the ball and going forward he wasn’t noted as being very active when off the ball. It has been noticeable that Raheem Sterling under Pep puts in much more work off the ball… Read more »
Pedro
‘Upstate, who the manager is doesn’t impact how you build out a data-centric infrastructure.”
FFS, it’s a football club, not Cambridge Analytica.
Of course the football manager matters. Arteta needs time and resources to succeed all right but you seem to be taking him away from the firing line.
That is how we ended up as the pressure free club.
Bruno’s looking a very boss signing, United’s dart board approach finally hit the bullseye.
Mikhi off on a free.
Dissenter, we’re not going back to the bad days of, ‘is anyone even important in football’ are we?
See how United are dismantling Brighton without any drama.
Pedro
Why did ‘t we just sell Mykhi to Roma for whatever Roma would pay. We can’t afford to lose so many players on free transfers.
I know we are saving on his wages but is that enough?
Stupid move. Take whatever Roma would pay for this loser.
Sheesh. the bad bizness continues
Diss, United had to be taken to extra-time against 10 man Norwich, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.
Mikhi earns £10m a year, I’m not sure Roma could afford that with a fee. Better to cut him loose, save some money, and move on.
Reckon we might do that with Mesut Ozil as well.
Rumours are that we are going to extend Mhkitaryan’s contract in order to sell him at a higher price. Of course exercising the option to extend means that his salary increases by £75kpw. We already can’t give him away for free because of high wage, there is no way we will be able to sell him for more money whilst he is on an even higher salary. The only happy for that extension are the player and his agent. Özil MkII is coming. This is the same dumb logic that saw us draw negotiation for 6 weeks for an extra… Read more »
He is on loan again and we lose him for free after that.
Pedro
“Diss, United had to be taken to extra-time against 10 man Norwich, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.Mikhi earns £10m a year, I’m not sure Roma could afford that with a fee. Better to cut him loose, save some money, and move on.Reckon we might do that with Mesut Ozil as well.”
Yes…that one was a very bad deal
We traded Alexis 130k weekly wages for 5 more months for Myki’s 180k weekly wages for 4 years.
We have been so badly run, it’s a shocker we aren’t in worse shape.
Were there not a report last season that Leroy Same was going to Bayern, because his mother wanted him to come back to Germany?
I just wonder if Leroy Sane will have more game time there, because Bayern has some very good wingers.
and he gets another 75K pw???
“Rumours are that we are going to extend Mhkitaryan’s contract in order to sell him at a higher price. Of course exercising the option to extend means that his salary increases by £75kpw.
We already can’t give him away for free because of high wage, there is no way we will be able to sell him for more money whilst he is on an even higher salary.
The only happy for that extension are the player and his agent. Özil MkII is coming.”
He is off to Roma already..Free
Maybe the club sees the 10 million savings on his wages to be enough baggage tossed out.
Why can’t anyone come for the great Mesut Ozil and just do us a favor?
I knew he would leave on a free. Called it a year ago, was told he was worth £15m. Ozil too.
Spanish refs are worse than English refs.
I’m interested to see who Arteta starts tomorrow at home.
If Ozil is on the bench again that is very telling. Tough game. Leicester are not exactly in the best of form going at the moment, even before lockdown. Vardy does love a goal against us though.
Would be a good boost to put in a big performance tomorrow night against a top 5 team. Get on a nice little run now.
Lol, found my old post. Just need Kola, Mustafi, Elneny and Chambers to go for £5m each and I can retire from the game undefeated.
Mhkitaryan is not leaving on a free, Arsenal has agreed to loan him to Roma next season, still subsidising his wage.
The real question is whether Arsenal has decided to cut their losses (and lose him for nothing next summer) or whether they have decided to exercise their option to extend.
I hope somebody has seen some sense.
Utd are 9 points ahead. Weird. I thought they and us were shit. Shadows of our former selves. We’re 10th. They’re 5th. 9 points ahead. Strange to compare us to them. Interesting that you bought up Brendan Rodgers pedro. He lost the league by a slip. The next season started bad. 10th. Fired. Klopp in. How long do you think Arteta will get if we start bad next season? Alot of fans are already on his case. This is a 5 year plan? You are joking surely. You do realize to get 5 years you have to be successful in… Read more »
Valentin
“Mhkitaryan is not leaving on a free, Arsenal has agreed to loan him to Roma next season, still subsidising his wage.
You don’t know that Arsenal is subsidizing his wages, you don’t know that.
Man United actually fielded a much changed team against Norwich mind.
I like what they are building there, the players can still be inconsistent and they wasted a fortune on the large headed fellow from Leicester, but they have a group of players that can cause anyone problems.
Pedro the last time a team bought players purely off data was Fulham last season, it was a complete disaster. I am all for data but sometimes u can see what you need right in front of you.
Partey looking every bit an Arsenal man with that miss to seal victory over Barca.
Valentin
Thought it is on a permanent deal, not sure though.
“”Henrix Mkhitaryan will stay at Roma also on next season on a permanent deal. Agreement reached with Arsenal – never started any talks for a swap deal with Justin Kluivert. 🇦🇲 #Arsenal #AFC #Roma #transfers”
posted by @FabrizioRomano
PieAFC
We’re playing Norwich tomorrow, not Leicester.
Great piece Pedro One of the most cogent analyses I have seen of modern Arsenal. The Ozil/ Sanchez debacle led to us pissing an enormous sum up the wall. If we’d sold Sanchez to Citeh we could have raised £70 million but Wenger faffed around. We then felt we were forced into the Ozil deal. He has bled us dry. Add to that Ramsey and Welbeck and we can speculate we have wasted £150 million possibly much more . That has forced us into deals that look to bring in established stars because we haven’t got a stable base in… Read more »
According to Gianluca DiMarzio ‘Roma have many questions about their players on loan and the possibility to extend them. Chris Smalling, player belonging to Manchester United, has no agreement yet (past June), but there is reasonable certainty he will finish the season with the giallorossi. The clubs must work on the option to buy Smalling when the season is over. Henrikh Mkhitaryan meanwhile is set to mutually terminate his contract, expiring in 2021, with Arsenal on 31 August. Then he will sign with Roma on a free-agent contract for one year. Zappacosta and Kalinic are set to extend their respective… Read more »
Reports that I see is that next season is a loan, but that they have an agreement in place for the season after. Mhkitaryan is willing to make an financial sacrifice for later seasons by staying on same salary than what Roma is currently paying him.
So next season same subsidising that this year, but when free drop in salary to what Roma is currently paying.
I think that it is the best we could expect. Even free no club is willing to pay his £180kpw wage.
Some on here really struggle to grasp concept of working the data/numbers to find separation and value other clubs have missed in the transfer market. Its a tool, nothing more that can work at any level. Not hard to find a Pepe and cut a deal for £72m, but how many on here were screaming for the club to sign Andy Robertson from Hull for £8m or Mo Salah from Roma for £38m after not cutting it with Chelsea? Sure he’d had a fantastic season in the Serie A, but his true potential likely hadn’t been unlocked according the info… Read more »
Thorough,
I would be extactic if Mhkitaryan were willing to terminate his contract. But why would he terminate his contract to sign a 1 year contract on less money when he could go back there on loan on his current salary?
Mini Raiola does not strike me as somebody who leaves money on the table. It would make sense if it was a 2~3 years contract. If tru Mhkitaryan is really desperate to leave Arsenal.
The rumours that have seen are for a 2 years deal after he become a free agent next summer on what Roma is currently paying.
Valentin “Reports that I see is that next season is a loan, but that they have an agreement in place for the season after. Mhkitaryan is willing to make an financial sacrifice for later seasons by staying on same salary than what Roma is currently paying him. So next season same subsidising that this year, but when free drop in salary to what Roma is currently paying. I think that it is the best we could expect. Even free no club is willing to pay his £180kpw wage.” Maybe, but Italian outlets are saying Mkhi is going to Roma free… Read more »
“Mini Raiola does not strike me as somebody who leaves money on the table. It would make sense if it was a 2~3 years contract. If tru Mhkitaryan is really desperate to leave Arsenal.”
Reports are that Roma would pay Raiola.
If Cedric is even average he’ll already be a slight upgrade on Bellerin Who right now is doing no better than AMN was doing when Arteta came in If it’s the case I’d sell Bellerin and use AMN as backup. We need to be more ruthless with our sellable assets when they’re not actually performing Outside of him being a hipster (is this an achievement???) I can’t remember any notable contributions from him dating back a few years now But that’s all if Cedric is actually the player Arteta seems to think he is. Until I’ve seen it I’ll continue… Read more »
Thebackpass,
“Reports are that Roma would pay Raiola.”
So Mhkitaryan will take a pay cut, but Mino Raiola will get a big fat check. He reallys looks after No1.
This will ends in tears. Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.
My team for Norwich: Martinez Mustafi Holding Kolasinac AMN Ceballos Xhaka Tierney Pepe Aubameyang Saka After 2 wins with playing 5 at the back, we shouldn’t change things around too much. Kolasinac would be the only one who would be lucky to keep his place in the side, but everyone else is injured. Saka could maybe rested for Nketiah, and play Aubameyang on the wing. Saka is the sort of player that finds an extra gear, even when he’s running out of energy, we saw that at Sheffield Utd in the final few minutes before we scored when he skipped… Read more »
Tbf as bad as arsenal have been at buying and selling in recent years, they made a small fortune off ox, iwobi and Walcott I think 3 players who were not doing anything of note for us, two of whom were very injury prone. I don’t recall the Walcott fee but combined we must’ve got 80-90m out of those 3. Daylight robbery… But then you see where we fucked up -Sanchez out on the cheap, mikki in and expensive -Laca was expensive -Auba was expensive and has done enough but if we lose him for nothing I’m it wasn’t 70m… Read more »
Overmars is game a third win on the bounce, a clean sheet and another Pepe goal allllll day
Hopefully you’re right. At least now we have something resembling a little bit of momentum even if we have been playing pretty badly. Winning breeds winning regardless of the performances involved
“So Mhkitaryan will take a pay cut, but Mino Raiola will get a big fat check. He reallys looks after No1.”
Raiola takes are of him self first then clients, still in shock how much he got from Pogba to Man.u deal.
We really don’t do well in sales, that is something the executives got to work on big time.. No amount should be to small except for Ozil of course, would be happy if he just left now.
*takes care*
I just don’t understand how players don’t realise that he is using them for his own benefit.
Players need a Pitbull in their corner, but there is a point where you have to assess if the Pitbull is doing more harm than good to your cause.
If as a player you lose money on a transfer but your agent makes money, that should be a wake up call. Time to change agent.
RH, the last team, outside 2x Champions League winners and the Premier League champions.
Not sure you’re going to convince many people on the planet that a data-centric approach isn’t exactly the thing we should be doing. Though I know you’ll try.
Fulham and Liverpool. You are bringing some levels these past two days
Peter
We can’t do that with ozil,
Because he is not out on loan.
Neither will he,
We are lumbered …
Cheers wenger.
Our biggest transfer coups in recent times have been Finding a way to make 90-100 mill (depending on who you ask) off the sales of THEO, Iwobi and the Ox.
RSPC, we terminated Mikhi’s deal (plan to). We can do that with Ozil.
Dunno if it was Statsdna Or Scouting Under the Influence, but whatever made Arsenal spend $140 million on Pepe, Xhaka and Mustafi needs to be binned to the coldest part of the artic.
The acid test for Arteta is Ozil and what he does, solution required.
Look at Arteta taking about ozil..
his back issue? Wtf
With ozil it’s always a faux injury
He says he doesn’t care about the salary. Come on get real ….
So the MLS instead of having a season is having a World Cup style tournament at Disneyland with no fans. It starts on next Tuesday. So the Kroenke’s own a MLS team.. time to make that Ozil to the MLS deal, Josh. I’m sure with his world class abilities and vision, Ozil could single handedly win that tournament for the Rapids in a much slower and lower talent league, no? Arsenal get rid of problem contract… Rapids wins a trophy. Ozil gets his coffee shop franchise a kick start in america.
Win/win. Problem solved.
Terminate ozil
Pull a mikki
“ https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/12018396/henrikh-mkhitaryan-extends-roma-loan-deal-from-arsenal”
This says Arsenal have preliminary agreement to extend his loan to next season at Roma
Receding throwing Fulham at Le Grove as anti data driven approach example with stench of agenda wafting about is serious banter. Give me strength man.
MLS is too hard for ozil
I’m banking on him retiring when he leaves us
He is finished in all leagues bar the Sunday pick up games. Well I taken that back. He would stink there too
China1 Good post, there’s been a lot of bad decisions over the last 5 years. To add to points you made, the summer that killed us was when we brought Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez for around 90m. That along the contracts of Ramsey, Welbeck, Wilshere, Sanchez and Ozil.. And to add to all that, hiring Unai Emery after Wenger and employing that idiot Ivan Gazidis, all have set us back a few years. Even though this season has been poor and recent results haven’t been great post lockdown. there’s a lot of positives at the moment. We have a good… Read more »
Today, Dayot Upamecano’s release clause of 54 million pounds expired today and he now has no clause and one year remaining on his contract.
Let’s act like the big club we are and try and get him over the line early doors.
I think everyone on here would love to see Upamecano and Saliba as our centre back pairing.
With a manager so dumb and boring like Arteta – prefers Xhaka over Ceballos – no amount of planning can bring results.
Liverpool couldn’t have been here without Klopp. Julian Nagelsmann is the next Klopp. He is closest any club can get to having Klopp as their manager.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.espn.com/soccer/arsenal/story/3752011/arsenal-head-of-recruitment-sven-mislintat-leaving-over-transfer-strategy-sources%3fplatform=amp
Liverpool got Torres, Anderson, Salah. BVB finds Auba much before Arsenal got a whiff. Haaland. Sancho was taken away to Germany beneath Arsenal’s nose. Arsenal’s own Gnabry is now Bayern’s Robben replacement. Yet, Arsenal sacks Sven Mislintat.
This club is finished till a sheikh or Dangote comes with moneybags.
Overmars I forgot Perez… He actually played ok for all the 5 mins wenger let him on the pitch lol. No idea what happened there but the transfer was just money burnt one way or another Re upa he’d be a dream signing but I think with saliba coming in and funds assumed to be very limited, I think we need to treat CM as priority n1 If we can get a proper CM like partey somehow, plus an under the radar bargain as well and from sales can somehow still generate funds for upa that would be a dream… Read more »
Everyone has a plan until someone actually pays them to put it into action.
Then they get fired.
Partey and Szoboszlai
Would be a huge relief
https://theshortfuse.sbnation.com/2020/6/30/21308735/henrikh-mkhitaryan-loan-transfer-roma-arsenal-mikel-arteta-mino-raiola
Television commentators praise players with lighter skin as more intelligent and hardworking than those with darker skin, showed a study by Danish firm RunRepeat
“If a player has aspirations of becoming a coach/manager, is an unfair advantage given to players that commentators regularly refer to as intelligent and industrious, when those views appear to be a result of racial bias?”
Sid interesting
Any links?
Found it very interesting indeed
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jun/29/groundbreaking-report-reveals-racial-bias-in-english-football-commentary
Pedro how did we arrive as Lucas Perez , Paulista and El neny…..yea Statdna. Fulham bought a lot of players from different leagues using a data approach when they got promoted, don’t know why the truth makes you uncomfortable. Data is all well and good but football has always been about identifying talent and helping them reach their full potential. Data doesn’t tell you things like players temperament and other human factors that stall the careers of a lot of youngsters. I don’t comment here for you to give me a pat on the back, always insinuating anyone who doesn’t… Read more »
By the way Liverpool are were there are bedside of Jurgen Klopp. Its quite simple. They brought in a man who went up against the might of Bayern and won twice. Players identify with that. He was always a charismatic fellow and ultimately his players run through walls for him. Let’s see some good coaching here first before looking for who to hand the keys to. We have players who can be coached and organized to perform better than the sum of their parts, they have shown this on occasion, the challenge has always been consistency. Now let’s see a… Read more »
* because of Jurgen Klopp
@Recefing hairline
Agree with you 100 percent. People go nuts for statistics these days and it’s all bollocks. If you can’t see how good a player is with you’re own 2 eyes then you shouldn’t be in the game. Football is a simple game made harder by idiots.
Asse is a classless club. Publishing that kind of message on their site about another club
They could have simply briefed Pedro, Ornstein or Amy Lawrence and Raul would have been toast this morning.
Statistical analysis in football drives me up the wall.
It’s like the stats given on Ozil’s value to the team.
I mean, what’s the frigging point.
Saka signed up + interest very real in Partey.
Orny speaks.
According to Ornstein we are going to announce Saka’s new contract this week.
Great news if true.
Pedro
Great article yesterday.
Tho I will say the situation isnt as bad as you believe it is. Data is still used at a very good capacity at the club. 4/5 of last summer’s signings were data driven.
Also glad we didn’t retain the StatDna guy after that disasterclass.
The New head physio Bruno Mazziotti is reportedly one of the best in the world.
R.H “””By the way Liverpool are were there are bedside of Jurgen Klopp. Its quite simple. They brought in a man who went up against the might of Bayern and won twice. Players identify with that. “””” Excellently put. If you give all the data in the world to Klopp – he will win you a league title. And if you dont give him you any data whatsoever-he will still win you a league title. Its nothing to do with data. Give the footballing equivalent of the Enigma Code to the likes of Emery and Arteta and they would not… Read more »
Pedro
Re: Liverpool eclipsed Arsenal with less money.
The reason for this is very simple.
The ethos and culture of the club was never forgotten. Everyone knows what playing for Liverpool is all about.
The owner, the board, the manager and his coaches and every single player, knew what was expected.
At Arsenal, that culture drained away as soon as we left Highbury.
As I’ve highlighted, all very simple.
Fire
Very very unusual for a club to make a statement like that.
The message primarily would be for their supporters but the player himself , his representatives and of course the wider football community won’t have missed it.
If Arsenal had agreed to him playing then that should have been honoured. The issue for me is why on earth would it have been agreed to in the first place.
If you go to Liverpool, you feel and see this culture.
It has nothing to do with money.
Don’t see anything wrong with what Receding is saying to be honest, don’t know why it always feels like a playground here most times. Wenger eagle would always crow about Firminho and Marko about Keita if I’m not mistaken. If you watch enough football you’d be able to see the potential most players have. No one is saying using stats is such a bad thing but all that effort goes to waste if the players are signed and the manager isn’t able to bring out the very best in them. There’s no guarantees with transfers in football, some you get… Read more »
Tyand GN “”””Football is a simple game made harder by idiots.”””” 100% Agreement Now we have things like Technical Directors and laughably Head of Football Operations to complicate it even further or gets their rapacious noses in the pigs trough. Total cobblers. All you need to be successful at a club is the following. A top manager. A top CEO. A chief scout who ain’t on the take. Some scouts who aint on the take A couple of computers. And a well endowed secretary, preferably brunette, who knows how to use the damn things to process the scouts reports (… Read more »
Do you think we have enough data to determine how much data has been used? Lol
I await the negatives.
Also again can’t neglect just how much impact that Coutinho money came in handy for Pool. Our highest sale is Oxlade at something around 30 million and that’s peanuts when compared. Would we have even done much better with a coutinho type sale? Who knows but considering our transfer business of late, I’d say we’d have wasted the money on filling up the squad with more journeymen looking for a last fat pay
I suspect Guendouzi would have come up highly on data scores when we signed him although unlike most here i admit i don’t have insights as to how transfer policy is made. Point made and reinforce point made by RH above is that stats did enough to perhaps identify Guen as a highly talented player but they did not give any clue (I assume) as to his temperament and inability to push on higher ad dominate the midfield (despite in my view the fact that he has the raw talent to do so) Data can be very useful but it… Read more »
CG
The moon is blue again.
I agree CG.
It seems that there’s a job for everyone these days.
Batistuta
No, we wouldn’t have done any better with “a Coutinho type sale”
Wasi
“””The New head physio Bruno Mazziotti is reportedly one of the best in the world.”””””
Kia or Edu’ s mate?
Are there no English or London based physios that the club can employ?
Fred Street will be turning in his grave to think a bloody Italian is our physio.
I thought that our first two stats based signings were Xhaka and Mustafi? If correct that should have been evidence enough that you can’t reduce human beings, even footballers, to a set of statistics.
The issue with Saliba’s case is not just about Arsenal reneging on their earlier agreed loan extension for their coup de France final.with PSG but a case of Etienne wanting to eat their cake and have it. It’s no more news that if Salina plays 17 matches for Etienne then Arsenal will pay £2M. The cup final makes it 17 matches for Saliba. Etienne want us to allow Saliba to play the final (17th match) and at the same time expecting us to pay the £2M. Arsenal’s ground is Saliba plays the final while we are not paying the said… Read more »
Graham
“”””It seems that there’s a job for everyone these days.”””””
Especially at Arsenal
No wonder our wage bill is constantly so high.
Thing is – our lot all bloody usless too.
Our Wenger did all their jobs before and was still better at it then this lot combined.
What on earth does Edu do apart make Arteta’s life as difficult as possible?
As yet , I do not think Eddie has built an on field relationship with Aubameyang. Lacazette and Aubameyang have clearly built up a good understanding over the previous 2 years and link up well. I get the impression that Eddie feels more comfortable on the pitch with his contemporaries, Saka , Willock and Nelson . These players know each other’s game , Eddie knows exactly the type of run to make when Saka is on the ball and he also links well with willock. It will be interesting to see if Aubameyang and Eddie can create a partnership, if… Read more »
CG When we signed Arsene in 1996 , remember the headline? Arsene , who Unknown Manager coming in from Japan. Cant fathom the abuse you’d be throwing at Arsenal for appointing a manager from Japan if you had social media back in those days. Also why do you have to make everything about Brits. And re Bruno- This is a guy who speaks 4-5 languages , worked in various countries very much outside his comfort zone and has worked hard to reach the top. And here you are moaning about why lil Brits working inside their pretty little comfort zones… Read more »
‘Arsenal’s ground is Saliba plays the final while we are not paying the said amount. We can’t do you a favour and still pay you for the favour’
Seriously what idiots. Also they reportedly didn’t agree to the training plan we provided for Saliba.